When my wife Consuelo and I moved to Carson City in January 1962, Dick and Betty Ham were among the first people who welcomed us to our adopted hometown. I was the new Associated Press correspondent in the state capital and Dick was chief of staff to Gov. Grant Sawyer.
Because of everything we went through with the Hams and other members of the Sawyer administration in the 1960s - I later became press spokesman for the State Gaming Control Board - we were saddened when we returned from a trip to Seattle earlier this month to learn that Betty had died of cancer on March 31 at the age of 76.
As Dick told me when we got together last week, "She was my lifetime companion. She was my moral compass, always keeping me on an even keel." They were married nearly 50 years, an admirable accomplishment in an era where people shed spouses like winter coats. And they lived in Carson City for more than 40 years except for brief sojourns in Washington, D.C., and Jacksonville, Fla.
We remember Betty Ham as a quiet person with strong opinions and a well-developed sense of right and wrong. During the first years of their marriage, Betty raised the children, Linda, now an environmental advocate in Grand Junction, Colo., and Jim, a computer specialist in Santa Rosa, Calif. Later, Betty worked in Nevada state government, eventually becoming claims manger for the Employment Security Department.
We shared many experiences with the Hams in the 1960s, everything from the Frank Sinatra gambling license revocation case to a 25-mile hike organized by Sawyer aides Bob Faiss and Chris Schaller in accordance with President Kennedy's national physical fitness campaign. Our wives accompanied and encouraged us to complete the hike and nursed our sore feet back to health. We even generated some national press coverage.
Betty Ham went door-to-door with her husband when he ran for Congress in 1968 and was always supportive of his political career. A private person, only her closest friends knew that she would have preferred to tend to her garden or that Dick and Betty met when they were 9-year-old fourth graders in Las Vegas. Or, as Dick confided to me last week, that she once traded a car for an Afghan puppy. Clearly, she was a lady who had her priorities straight.
Those are the kinds of warm remembrances that remain from a loving 50-year relationship. I was glad that Dick chose to share those happy memories with me and thank him for reminding me of the major role our lifetime companions play in our lives, and to remember to tell them how much we appreciate the multiple ways they enrich our lives.
We're going to plant flowers in memory of Betty Ham. She would have liked that.